Chinese Zodiac will be Jackie Chan's last action movie

Cannes 2012: Jackie Chan says Chinese Zodiac will be his last action movie

CANNES, FRANCE — Jackie Chan is landing his last punch as an action star, but says he is stepping into retirement having made one of the most important films of his career.

Joel Ryan/AP

The Hong Kong actor told the AP on Friday that his latest film Chinese Zodiac will be his last action movie.

Chan, launching the movie at the Cannes Film Festival with co-stars Kwone Sang Woo, Yao Xingtong and Liao Fan, said that people don’t believe him when he says he is going to retire.

“They say ‘no, you’re still young, you can still do it,’ but I have to stop one day.”

The 58-year-old says he is bowing out with Chinese Zodiac — in which he plays a fortune hunter, travelling the world trying to track down missing astrological antiques — because it is one of the “most important” films in his career.

Isn't that a semantic issue only? - I think "action movie" in China can mean costumed epics a la Hero, and more modern takes. I remember Jet Li proclaimed something similar after Fearless, and then went on to star in a couple of Western action flicks.

Isn't that a semantic issue only? - I think "action movie" in China can mean costumed epics a la Hero, and more modern takes. I remember Jet Li proclaimed something similar after Fearless, and then went on to star in a couple of Western action flicks.

I think Jet said it would be his last "epic" film, whatever that means.

Isn't that a semantic issue only? - I think "action movie" in China can mean costumed epics a la Hero, and more modern takes. I remember Jet Li proclaimed something similar after Fearless, and then went on to star in a couple of Western action flicks.

I thought Unchained showed that fight scenes aside (there were plenty), Jet Li can actually be a very convincing actor (but that was in a movie where he had almost no dialogue).